9997
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EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Vol. III, Issue 9/ December 2015
Impact Factor: 3.4546 (UIF)
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Deterioration in Pakistan’s Education System: A
Look at Political Influences
Dr. MUHAMMAD AHMED QADRI
Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Karachi, Pakistan
Dr. MUHAMMAD ALI
Department of Political Science
University of Karachi, Pakistan
Abstract:
This paper aims to understand the reasons behind the lagging
education quality of Pakistan. Over the years, many policies have been
implemented to promote education in the country. However, even in the
year 2015 there are still many issues preventing the advancement of
education in Pakistan. Many factors contribute to this unchanging
status. The role that the political influences have had on the policies:
their ulterior motives, the selfishness, and their unwillingness to
benefit anyone but themselves has very negatively impacted any
chances of improving the quality of education in Pakistan. To
improve the development of a modern state, society, and economy,
Pakistan’s youth needs to be equipped with proper education, and
leadership skills. However, the country’s education system has proved
inadequate in the challenge of providing the young generation of
Pakistan with these training opportunities. Despite the many
educational reform policies that were implemented as an attempt to
improve the education situation in Pakistan, the political parties are
continuing to influence the decisions being made via bribery and
nepotism, and thus the ultimate end results do not favor the youth of
Pakistan, but instead only benefit the different aspects of the political
parties.
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Key words: Pakistan’s education system, deterioration, political
influences
BACKGROUND OF PROBLEMS:
Independence and the Importance of Education
After gaining independence from British rule in August of 1947,
Pakistan realized that it was on its own to improve the
conditions of its newly independent country. To have a thriving
society meant that the country had to excel in many aspects
including: socially, economically, and politically. The country
was united against Britain, but to ensure proper foundation
building and effective nation building, the country had to be
united as a whole and work on advancing itself. Pakistan was
quick to understand the importance of education for the
development of the country. All advancements in the country
had a root: education improvement.
By improving the education, the country would address
all three major aspects of the nation, especially the political
aspect. Education would allow the people of Pakistan to have
effective leaders who were informed on policies and how to
improve the state of the country – thus the political side of the
country would be set. The education would serve as a soul of the
political system. All developed countries have witnessed that
their educational system was the major foundation of improving
the quality of their political systems which helped shaped their
countries into nations that were equipped to deal with the
challenges of national and international societies. Education
creates a sense of understanding of the current issues that the
country is facing. For instance a Minister of Education that has
no Ph.D. or aptitude towards research would not be able to
undertake the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education.
This is why in the developed countries, the Prime Minister or
President of the country seriously considers who to appoint as
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Minister of Education, and ensures that it is one who has
proper expertise in education including at least a Ph.D. These
examples are evident in USA, Canada, Australia, Europe, and
so forth.
As for the economic side, education creates the
professionals required to keep a country going. They
understand the world marketing and demands to establish
proper world trade and boost the economy. Socially, education
provides the backbone of how the people of Pakistan interact
with one another – without unity the country would fall apart.
Education provides manners, code of conduct, communication
skills, and social psychology, all of which are essential in
creating an ideal social environment for a developing country.
EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN
After freedom from the British rule, the part of the region that
belonged to Pakistan consisted of a very backward population.
Without a strong educational base, the political, economic, and
social status of Pakistan was not going to get very far. At that
point, about eighty-five percent of the overall population was
illiterate. This number was even lower in the more rural parts
of the country and when applied to women, the educated
percentage was very close to zero. Throughout the many years
from then until now, many attempts were made but the
progress was still very lacking. Even this far into the 21st
century Pakistan cannot claim to be a largely literate country.
Nearly two-thirds (2/3) of the population is still illiterate. This
means that Pakistan is only tapping into one-third (1/3) of its
full potential.1 More than twenty-five percent (25%) of children
between five and nine years of age are not attending school.
Between five and nine years is when children are highly
influenced and if not done positively through education, they
1 Adult and youth literacy: Statistics and trends, 1985-2015
www.uis.unesco.org/.../literacy-statistics-trends-1985-2015.pdf
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cannot form habits that would benefit them in society as well as
benefit the society as a whole. For example, they will not learn
basic education or manners to properly contribute to society. If
they lose this basic foundation so early in life, it will be very
difficult to move forward with big ambitions. They will lose out
on seeing, experiencing, and learning about so many of the
things that help them to live an active life such as: working
together with others, effective communication, leadership,
manners, encouragement, and creativity. Even little everyday
tasks require these basic skills, and although they may be able
to get by in life without them, it will not help to improve the
condition of the country as a whole – the country will remain
stagnant in their education situation and thus stagnant in their
social, political, and economic development. On the other hand,
the children that are able to attend schools must deal with lack
of quality of education, especially in those owned by the
government. The education that is provided needs to be
revamped to focus on helping the children excel in all aspects.
A study that was done in 1994, conducted Urdu
language and arithmetic tests to children in grade 3 attending
government schools found that those students in Lahore were
not being properly educated and that they did not benefit from
the education system being provided for them. Out of all the
students in the schools who took the tests, only thirty-three
percent of them passed both tests. In 1996, the same test was
given to students on the Punjab and revealed that only twenty-
two percent of the students passed. Thus, even though the test
that was given was according to the criteria the students would
have been learning in grade 3, not even half the students were
able to pass. This meant that the government schools were
lacking in one or more ways in their education system.
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NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL POLICIES
To battle the ongoing problem of the education system, as
mentioned before, many policies were put in place since gaining
freedom from the British. At first, these policies were well put
together and truly understood the issues properly and put in
place action goals to solve the most pressing issues. However,
as time went on, these policies began to lose sight of their
original goal. The plans and projects became more influenced by
political parties which were only interested in their personal
gain and thus started to lose their strength. The policies began
to benefit the political parties and their members more and the
general population as well as the future of the country less and
less.
NATIONAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE: 1947
This conference was held immediately after Pakistan became
free, and thus was the first of many. It was supposed to form
the basis or foundation upon which the other policies would
follow. The initial problems of the country’s situation were
discussed as well as ways to improve the conditions. The
respected founder of our country, Quaid-e-Azam spoke at the
conference and had the right idea of education in mind. He
declared that the importance of education could not be
overemphasized because the future of the country depended on
the type of education the children of the country were given and
how they were brought up as the future citizens of the country.
He understood that even at his time, the rest of the countries of
the world were already moving very fast in the right direction
in matters involving education, and because of it they were
seeing very positive effects on their society as a whole. 2
2 Kwaja, Sarfraz, Eradication of Illiteracy in Pakistan: An Analysis 1947-87,
Academy of Educational Planning and Management, Government of Pakistan
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From the conference, different committees were formed
including for primary education, secondary education, and
adult education. The first two committees agreed that a
national system of education should be based on the strong
foundations of free and compulsory primary education. They
considered the factors contributing to good quality education for
the children of their newfound country such as: medium of
instruction, teacher training, and physical education, teaching
materials and literature.
On the other hand, the Adult Education committee had
a tougher challenge. It was easy to educate and influence
children from a young age, but it became much more difficult to
do at the adult ages, especially when the illiteracy rate was at a
staggering 85 percent which was not only confined to the rural
areas but also included a large portion of the urban population
as well. They urged taking actions to quicken the pace of
literacy and to show the importance of having an education to
the masses. They wanted to not only educate adults, but keep
them educated and even encourage further advanced education.
Their plan was to introduce a free and compulsory system
composed of primary education that would complement with a
permanent system of adult education. Their goal was to solve
the illiteracy problem within 25 years through different stages.
In the first five years, the focus was to be placed on
planning, recruiting teachers, and training
In the sixth year, the focus was to ensure that by then
around 500,000 people were made literate and from then
on an increase in 300,000 yearly.
NATIONAL PLAN OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
1951-1957
The National Plan of Educational Development was a six year
plan that was promoted at an education conference held in 1951
as the first deliberate effort to anticipate and provide for the
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country’s requirements in the various fields of education. The
conference highlighted the main problems at that time that the
various plans for education improvement were encountering.
One of the most pressing was the lack of trained teachers. It
identified that almost half of the teachers in primary schools
were untrained and with their plan of expansion of primary
schools, they would need more than 86,000 additional teachers.
They understood that if the teachers were untrained, the
education that the children would receive would be of very low
quality and all the work, time, energy, and resources put in
place would go to waste. Another issue was the lack of school
buildings and supplies needed to ensure that the children were
getting quality education.
Their new laid out plan included establishing over
24,000 new primary schools that would have a combined
capacity of 3.7 million students, to counteract the amount of six
to eleven year olds that were not in school, which at that time
was an astounding two-thirds. Their goal was to enroll two-
thirds of their target group by the year 1957. The plan also
included a portion that proposed the Village Agricultural and
Industrial Development Program in which literacy centers were
to be set up and teachers as well as teaching materials were to
be provided as an attempt to educate 2.8 million adults every
year.
Unfortunately when the decade review for 1947-1957
came out, the effectiveness of the plans of this national plan
were negated. It turned out that the literacy rate did not
improve at all, and it actually dropped slightly from 16.4
percent to 16.3 percent due to the ineffectiveness of the
administration involved as well as the organization of the plan.
FIRST FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1955-1960
It was launched in December of 1957, two years late. It claimed
that a universal system of primary education was absolutely
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necessary because primary education is the basis for
advancement of the society. It is important to give the people of
Pakistan a proper education so that they can become proper
citizens contributing to the betterment of the society. The plan
was to establish a universal system of free and compulsory
primary education in about twenty years. To achieve this target
they would:
Add 4000 new schools
Increase the number of trained teachers to a total of
118,500
Focus on the organization and management aspects of
primary education
Come up with a different approach to monitor the
progress of the education system at the local and district
level.
They felt that advisory boards and school management
committees made up of members of the local community that
were elected by the masses as responsible enough to make the
right decisions that would allow for advancement of community
through education. Among the responsibilities these groups
would have, selecting qualified teachers, ensuring there were
enough learning materials provided, and monitoring progress
as well as identifying new needs that the growing community
may have would be some of them.3
REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON NATIONAL
EDUCATION: 1959
The 1959 Conference reported that now the major problem they
were facing was the lack of enthusiasm from the people of the
country. They were not interested in contributing towards the
steps necessary to ensure in the advancement of Pakistan. The
3 Government of Pakistan, National Planning Board, First Five Year Plan:
1955-1960, 1957
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public duty they had was not very important to them, yet it was
the people who would bring the change. If they did not want to
participate in the nation building, manual work, and education
to fulfill their public duty to their newly found country, then
unfortunately Pakistan would not get very far. Thus, this was
the focus of this Conference. They took a different approach to
target the adult audience in that they would change the
traditional views of education that the people had already
formed. To show that education was a powerful thing would
encourage the population to welcome the opportunities they
were being given with open arms. However, this was only half
the problem, the other half consisted of changing the attitudes
of the educator. If the teachers and professors themselves were
not interested in presenting the importance of education and
the ability of education to bring about drastic changes in the
country, then how would that translate into the students they
were teaching. They would need to be passionate about how
they were teaching and when they transferred information to
the students they had, they would have to have an enthusiasm
within themselves to spark more interest from the students to
get more and more education. When the teachers are excited to
teach, that has a very positive impact on the students to learn
more and increase their knowledge. Thus, this was the other
half of their target.4
They defined their objectives in adult education to be
focused on developing individuals to their maximum capacity to
ensure that they can gain the adequate skills necessary to live a
happy and healthy life participating in community and national
tasks. To develop these individuals the curriculum would
include skills that these people would normally need including:
reading, writing, speech skills, listening skills, basic math
skills, and simple and practical science. They would also make
it their goal to encourage certain behavior to better the society
4 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, Report of the Commission
on National Education, 1959
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as a whole. They would encourage students to think creatively,
to be able to work with their hands, to become unique in their
talents, have a strong sense of patriotism to their country, and
take up healthy habits and personal hygiene. All these habits
formed would have a strong positive impact on the country as a
whole because a country is only as good as its people. If the
people were developing themselves personally on all levels
through education, then it meant that the country as a whole
was improving and developing itself.
The goals that they came up with included achieving
universal achievement in 15 years. The curriculum would be
altered to fit the objectives that they came up with, as described
earlier, and the physical aspects of learning would be improved:
school buildings, furniture, and supplies would be provided as
the communities required it. Also, it brought more attention to
education as a local issue that needed the community’s help in
battling. The national level could only judge the education
problems as a whole country, but the community knew
specifically the fields in which their area was lacking. Through
this more specified knowledge, they could pinpoint exact needs
of certain districts and provide solutions based on that. This
approach would be much better than a generalized one applying
to the entire country. Thus, they came up with more local
strategies that seemed to be different from before. They
planned to:
Utilize educated children to pass knowledge and skills to
their parents and other family members
Have undergraduate college students serve as adult
literacy teachers
Use the technique of “each one teach one” approach as a
means to spread the knowledge that one adult gained to
another through direct, one on one interaction.
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SECOND FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1960-19655
The Second Five Year Plan started by evaluating the
performance of the First Five Year Plan and concluded that
even though the First Five Year Plan had high ambitions and
goals, they failed to come up with adequately impressing
results. The built only 2,400 schools out of the planned 4,000
and instead of increasing enrollment by about one million, they
only increased it to less than half that amount: 440,000.
Learning from these mistakes, the Second Five Year Plan set
out to improve the odds in their favor.
They decided to tackle the problem by providing more
funds to ensure that they would get results. In order to open
15,200 new primary schools and increase primary school
enrollment by 1.2 million, they would spend Rs. 990 million
which was two thirds of the total 5-year social sector outlay. By
spending the money, they would improve teacher training,
provide teaching aids, and adjust the curriculum. Additionally,
they would highlight education improvement for girls because
out of the 4.7 million children enrolled, only 1.1 million
consisted of girls. They would ensure that more girls were
enrolled in the already established schools, and that new,
separate schools were built as girls-only schools.
THIRD FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1965-19706
The Third Five Year Plan set out to evaluate the Second Five
Year Plan to learn from the mistakes made and set new goals
and objectives to supplement what was lacking in the previous
plan. They would also take steps to ensure that the education
situation of Pakistan was moving in the right direction. They
5 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Second Five Year Plan:
1960-1965, 1960 6 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Third Five Year Plan: 1965-
1970, 1965
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found that although the original goal of the Second Five Year
Plan to achieve an increase of primary school enrollment from
36 percent to 56 percent only partially succeeded by achieving
an enrollment of 45 percent, the plan still managed to enroll an
additional two million students which was still an
accomplishment worth commending. They realized that
compared to the First, the Second Plan has a five-fold increase
in the amount they spent financially and seeing these
encouraging results, the Third Five Year Plan decided to
allocate Rs. 2652 million. It was understood that investing in
the nation’s education system would be worth it in the years to
come when the economy would be positively impacted by the
educated masses of the country.
The Third Five Year Plan set out to alter the education
system to match the increasingly advancing transition into the
era of science and technology. To focus on providing a means for
young people to have strong positive character that would then
positively impact the communities as well as the country as a
whole, they would increase the quality of education at all levels.
To achieve this, they planned to build 42,500 new schools and
focus again on teacher training, teaching aids, and the physical
aspects of the school buildings. However, this time they also
wanted to emphasize on bettering retention rates as well as
teacher salaries. By concentrating on retention rates, they
would ensure that the students that did enroll would remain in
school and possibly seek higher education and thus apply their
knowledge in their future lives – which was the whole purpose
of educating the masses. As for the teacher salaries, a higher
salary meant that the job would be more attractive to the
population and those who were already teachers would be more
enthusiastic about teaching, which would reflect onto the
students by sparking more students to be interested in
increasing their knowledge. A higher teacher salary would also
mean that more people would aim to get the job which required
higher education skills and thus they would take more interest
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in the knowledge they were gaining in schools in order to
achieve an end goal of getting a job as a teacher.
THE EDUCATION POLICY: 1972-19807
The 1972 Education Policy recognized that there was still a
substantial need for adult education. After noticing that there
were 40 million adult illiterates, they made a goal of
establishing 276,000 literacy centers throughout the country in
every place that would be convenient for large populations of
adults to gain an education in order to teach 11 million total
people.
Their main aim was towards improving adult education
as well as elementary education in an attempt to abolish the
illiteracy problem in the quickest way possible. Additionally,
they wanted those who were part of the under-privileged
classes to also benefit because they were also citizens of
Pakistan and deserved no less treatment in the right to
education. They planned on building special facilities for those
who were having difficulty achieving an education through the
traditional methods, such as separate schools for women,
schools for the mentally retarded or physically handicapped and
special schools for those who lived in difficult to educate, very
backwards societies.
Again, their goal was to make education free and
universal for primary levels for all children in Pakistan by 1979
for all boys and 1984 for all girls. However, this time it was to
be applied to private and government schools – where the
government would compensate the private schools for their
actions in following the policies set out. The education would
not be compulsory. To achieve this goal of universal education,
they set out to:
Build 61,000 more classrooms for elementary schools
7 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, The Education Policy, 1972
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Train 150,000 new teachers
Hire 75,000 more teachers through the National
Literacy Corps.
Unfortunately the 1972 Education Policy was overtaken in 1977
by the military coup d’etat. This authority by the military
caused serious alterations in what the Policy felt were its
priorities. The beliefs that everyone had a basic right to
education and that education would be what caused the true
advancement of society were thrown out as the new ruling body
wanted to start its own agenda.
FIFTH FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1978-19838
The Fifth Five Year Plan declared that the economic, social,
and political backwardness was due to the stagnant educational
system. No progress in education meant no progress in the
society’s other aspects or in the nation as a whole. In a world
full of rapidly advancing countries, Pakistan would have to
significantly increase its literacy rate in order to show any
improvement and even be able to keep up with the other
countries of the world.
The plan was to increase the per capita expenditure on
education to achieve positive results. The target was to get all
young boys enrolled into Class 1 by 1983 and universal
enrollment of all boys at elementary level by 1987. A major part
of the plan also consisted of working on decreasing the dropout
rate. If the students they were working on so much only
attended school for a couple of years then all their, time, energy
and money was going to waste because the students would
quickly forget what they were taught and would not advance
very far into the education world. The importance of staying in
8 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Fifth Five Year Plan, 1978-
1983, 1978
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school and continuing education should be just as emphasized
as enrolling in school in the first place.
17,166 existing schools would be revamped in order to
accommodate the higher number of students expected to
be enrolled
12,641 new school buildings would be put up in places
where the demand was high and supply low
The hiring of 75,748 new teachers would be required to
fulfill the newly opened spots at the schools.
They also decided that they needed to tackle the low literacy
rate within the girl population of the country. To do so, they
would give higher importance to schools specifically for girls
and encourage the already existing schools to make
accommodations for the girls as well. The goal was to increase
girl enrollment in schools from 33 percent to 45 percent.
NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY AND
IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAMME: 19799
By this time, still half of the nation’s children including two-
thirds of the nation’s girls did not attend school. In fact, the
enrollment ratio was stated to be
32 percent in Balochistan
52 percent in NWFP
59 percent in Sindh
56 percent in Punjab
Among rural girls, the ratio was:
10 percent in Balochistan
14 percent in NWFP
16 percent in Sindh
29 percent in Punjab
9 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, National Policy and
Implementation Programme, 1979
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Low enrollment was further aggravated by a high drop-out rate
which was estimated to be about 50 percent overall and even
higher for girls.
While the Fifth Five Year Plan proposed to enroll all
boys of Class 1 age by 1983 and achieve universal enrollment
for the entire elementary age group, five to nine years of age, by
1987, this 1979 National Education Policy proposed to achieve
the same by 1987 and 1992 respectively. Meaning that within
one year, the government had shifted forward the two targets
by 4-5 years.
This policy aimed at providing basic education that
would allow the people of Pakistan to be able to help
themselves as well as help their community improve as a
whole. The policy specifically stated that it would provide
education irrespective of what the people’s status was, what
their faith was, or what their caste was. Education was a basic
fundamental right that everyone in the country deserved and
discriminating who would receive education and who wouldn’t
meant that the country could not take the proper steps forward
in the right direction towards development of its economic,
social, and political status in order to compete with the fast
paced rest of the world.
They came up with a 9 point statement of “National
Aims of Education” and a 12 point Implementation Strategy,
both of which included goals of establishing more schools and
renovating the existing ones, providing the necessary supplies
to each of the existing and new schools, take surveys to
understand the needs of the local schools and things that they
could improve on. They also recognized the importance of and
encouraged the communities to get involved in their local
schools and local education situations. No matter how much the
plans would be managed at the national level, if the
communities would not get involved at the local level then the
advancement of education would be very difficult and would
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face many problems that the national government would not be
able to comprehend or deal with alone.
The Plan also recognized the lack of progress in
reference to adult education even though there were many
previous attempts. To raise literacy levels from 24 percent to 35
percent by 1983, they set out to raise 10,000 adult literacy
centers sponsored by various groups including the Ministry of
Education, Pakistan Television Centres, IRDP markazes,
AllamaIqbal Open University Study Centres, and social welfare
centres. The ultimate goal was to achieve 100 percent adult
literacy by 2010.
In the 1981 population census regarding the literacy
status of the country, the literacy rates showed improvement:
Overall literacy had increased from 21.7 percent to 26.2
percent
Urban literacy increased from 41.5 percent to 47.1
percent
Rural literacy increased from 14.3 percent to 17.3
percent
Rural female literacy rate had increased from 4.7
percent to 7.3 percent
LITERACY AND MASS EDUCATION COMMISSION:
198110
The Literacy and Mass Education Commission, or LAMEC, was
formed in 1981 under the federal government to pursue its
policy goals of achieving mass literacy. Some of the functions
and goals of the commission included:
Evolving strategies to eradicate illiteracy and promote
functional literacy through formal and informal mass
approached
10 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, The Gazette of Pakistan,
Part 3, February 17, 1981
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Develop plans on literacy and mass education in
accordance to the needs of the target population and
send recommendations to the Federal Government.
Organize and launch regular campaigns for the purposes
of eradication of illiteracy and promotion of mass
education
SIXTH FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1989-198811
The Sixth Five Year Plan recognized that without education, no
country can succeed in its economic and political power, and if a
country cannot advance its educational situation or neglects its
educational responsibilities then the result will cost the future
generations. It also reviews the past performance which showed
that still less than 25 percent of the total population of
Pakistan was literate and that still, less than half of the
children of Pakistan were enrolled in schools.
The Sixth Year Plan promised to take a different
approach and give special attention to women in rural areas. To
raise the percentage of students going to primary school from
48 percent to 75 percent by 1988, meaning that over 5 million
additional children would receive an education, the plan was to
spend Rs.7.8 billion and follow these steps:
Introduce the concept of mixed enrollment in all new
and existing schools in classes 1-3
Dedicate schools as girls only for those areas where
mixing was not possible
Utilize mosques to accommodate classes 1-3 of new
schools and overcrowded existing schools
Construct sheds or buildings in urban areas to
supplement the space available in mosques for opening
new schools
11 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Sixth Five Year Plan,
1983-88, 1983
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Create a separate implementation agency for primary
education at federal, provincial, and subsequent levels.
NATIONWIDE LITERACY PROGRAMME: 1986-199012
The Nationwide Literacy Programme was launched by the
newly inducted Junejo Government in December of 1985 with
the objective of making 14 million people literate, raising the
literacy rate to 53 percent by 1990 at a total cost of Rs. 2657
million. Literacy centres were to be opened in villages and
towns with higher populations of illiterate citizens covering a
total of 103 districts in the provinces, Federally Administered
Tribal Areas, Federally Administered Northern Areas, and
districts in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
NAI ROSHNI SCHOOLS: 1986-199013
The Nationwide Literacy Programme was also overtaken by
another scheme called the Nai Roshni Schools over the period of
1986-1990. One of the major focuses was on dropout students
and giving them opportunities to get back on track and
continue their education. They also wanted to raise the literacy
percentage by 5 percent by:
Stimulating semi-literates and the illiterate population
of all age groups to become literate
Providing liberal opportunities for jobs to educated un-
employed and thus increase their participation in Nation
building activities
Enable 1.65 million children to receive an education up
to class 5 and decrease the number of dropouts
12 Government of Pakistan, Literacy and Mass Education Commission, PC-1,
Nationwide Literacy Programme, 1986 13 Government of Pakistan, Literacy and Mass Education Commission, PC-1,
Nai Roshni Schools, 1986
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Introduce a system of informal primary education in
order to universalize the learning environment in the
country
To provide employment opportunities to educated
unemployed people and to bring emphasize to the public
about the importance of literacy
SEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1988-199314
The Seventh Five Year Plan sought to learn from the mistakes
of the sixth and went at the education problem of the country
from their own perspective. Their goals were to ensure that
there were adequate school buildings – every child from 5 years
to 9 years old should have access to a school within a radius of
1.5 kilometers by 1993, and that every child that had a school
nearby to them would have to attend school. The plan wanted
to work on the physical aspect of improving education, as in
improving the actual buildings by making schools where there
were shelter less schools and adding classrooms where there
was overcrowding.
NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY: 199215
The National Education Policy in 1992 came up with a different
strategy for tackling the education problem. They shifted the
adult education programmes to non-governmental
organizations that would receive support for its work through
incentive grants from provincial and Federal Education
foundations. Major focuses of this policy included: opening
informal education to nongovernmental organizations,
achieving 100 percent literacy in selected districts, setting up
14 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Seventh Five Year Plan,
1988-93, Chapter 29, 1988 15 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, National Education Policy,
1992
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model schools in rural areas for male and female students,
introducing compulsory social service for students, using
general schools as technical schools in the evening shift to
capture the dropouts of general education.
EIGHTH FIVE YEAR PLAN: 1993-9816
The Eighth Five Year Plan again focused on the
universalization of primary education for both girls and boys.
To achieve this goal, they would undertake a detailed school
mapping exercise to ensure that there is a school for every
settlement of more than 300 people. Additionally they would
work to increase the total number of girls attending schools by
motivating parents to send their kids to get an education. The
importance and urgency of female education was repeatedly
stressed in this plan. Other points that were touched included
increasing the quality of the education by improving the quality
of teachers, and decreasing the dropout rate by providing better
supervision.
NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY: 1998-201017
The National Education Policy of 1998 again recognized the
importance of education and its role in the advancement of the
nation in its social, economic, and political aspects. This policy
was aimed at improving the quality of education, expanding the
access for all children, improving management services, and
focusing on informal education. It proposed to:
Build 190,000 new formal primary schools
Build 250,000 informal basic education centres
Build 57,000 mosque schools
16 Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Eighth Five Year Plan,
1993-98, 1993 17 Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, National Education Policy:
1998-2010, 1998
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Upgrade 60,000 primary schools
Recruit another 527,000 teachers
By achieving these goals, the result would be that 90 percent of
the children of Pakistan that are between the ages of 5 and 9
would be enrolled in primary school by the year 2003, and 100
percent would be enrolled by the year 2010.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION
From the very beginning up until now, the educational system
and policies of the country have had many ups and downs. In
all of the governments that the country has had, there was no
significant improvement of education and no actual focus on the
importance and need of education. In the beginning, Quaid-e-
Azam had the right message and the right direction for the
education in terms of the social, political, and economic
development of Pakistan, however, as time went on this
message was forgotten and the different bodies that held power
had different ulterior motives even though on the surface their
policies seemed to be for the benefit of the population. They
created short term policies realizing that it would be enough for
the national needs but the government forgot to understand
that the educational policies should not be short term because
every developed nation in the world has proved that a major
role for community development was played by the education
especially for creating awareness among the youth of the
nation.
Furthermore, it should be noticed that due to political
considerations and interests, most of the federal and provincial
governments of Pakistan had recruited teachers on the basis of
politics especially at primary and secondary level which badly
damaged the concept of national progress. Educational policies
and educational institutions should have been kept away short
term planning and political interests, but the political parties
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never realized that they have some basic responsibilities for the
promotion of positive political culture in Pakistan which could
have been established through educational public policies based
on non political motives. The higher education or adult
education should have been given priority to create a research
oriented society, but unfortunately the governments did not
realize the importance of research for the promotion of the
state, that is why most of the scholars produced by Pakistan
have left the country forever and now give their services for
other nations and have created their identity in other nations.
Their talent could have been utilized and such talent could
easily create a kind of educational revolution for the stability of
the political culture of Pakistan.
The political history reveals that most of the political
parties have student’s wings at the university level. They
directly influence Vice Chancellors or high officials of the
University. The same is occurring at the college level. The
funds allocated to these educational purposes are insufficient
on one hand, while they are misused on the other. The supply of
books, chemicals, computers, and other facilitation through
modern technology like video conferencing, online grading, and
so forth are insufficient due to the noninterest of the
government and appointment of Vice Chancellors through the
Chancellor or Chief Minister office which are pure political
offices, which means that the Vice Chancellors or head of
education at a school does not have the best interests of the
students in mind, but rather the paycheck they get at the end of
month.
In short, we can analyze that all these problems can be
overthrown if the federal government and provincial
governments of Pakistan make education free from all kind of
political influence. Appointment of teachers on the basis of
merit must be restored and the youth of the country should be
invited to be an active part of the community of Pakistan either
as volunteers or as full time or part time employees in school,
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college and university education. Teachers at all levels of
educational institutions must not participate in any kind of
political activities especially supporting political parties or
student’s political wings in educational institutions. For the
betterment of the education system and freedom of education
from political influence, the best way would be check and
balance by the Judiciary of Pakistan. Every year a national
conference must be organized by the government in which
educational personalities participate and present their
viewpoints for the improvement of political economy of
Pakistan as well as the educational system of Pakistan as
Mahateer Mohammad of Malasia pulled out his country from
the same problems as Pakistan has been facing for a long time.
The Malasian model can be the best example for Pakistan.
REFERENCES
1. Kwaja, Sarfraz, Eradication of Illiteracy in Pakistan: An
Analysis 1947-87, Academy of Educational Planning and
Management, Government of Pakistan
2. Government of Pakistan, National Planning Board, First
Five Year Plan: 1955-1960, 1957
3. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, Report
of the Commission on National Education, 1959
4. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Second
Five Year Plan: 1960-1965, 1960
5. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Third
Five Year Plan: 1965-1970, 1965
6. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, The
Education Policy, 1972
7. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Fifth
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8. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education,
National Policy and Implementation Programme, 1979
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System: A Look at Political Influences
EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH - Vol. III, Issue 9 / December 2015
10021
9. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, The
Gazette of Pakistan, Part 3, February 17, 1981
10. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Sixth
Five Year Plan, 1983-88, 1983
11. Government of Pakistan, Literacy and Mass Education
Commission, PC-1, Nationwide Literacy Programme,
1986
12. Government of Pakistan, Literacy and Mass Education
Commission, PC-1, Nai Roshni Schools, 1986
13. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Seventh
Five Year Plan, 1988-93, Chapter 29, 1988
14. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education,
National Education Policy, 1992
15. Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission, Eighth
Five Year Plan, 1993-98, 1993
16. Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education,
National Education Policy: 1998-2010, 1998